In addition, messages and updates can be pushed to smartphone home screens and digital wallets in real-time, delivering expiration alerts, new offers and personalised information such as member point totals or flight gate changes.

Goodbye Forgotten Paper Coupons

Co-founder and chief executive officer of Urban Airship, Scott Kveton, said a growing number of companies are looking beyond apps to digital wallet programmes in a bid to reach more customers and offer new experiences that grow their loyalty.

"We’re at the proverbial tip of the iceberg for what’s to come in mobile,” Kveton said.

“Consumers are just now discovering the value and convenience of digital wallets. Businesses can gain greater efficiencies and more effectively close the loop on ROI over decades-old paper and plastic-based processes and newer but siloed social channels.”

Kveton said unlike often forgotten paper coupons and plastic membership cards, digital wallets are designed to bring convenience to consumers so that all of their coupons, loyalty cards and tickets can be found on the one device that they never leave behind.

The new Wallet Studio expands on templates included in Apple Passbook and Google Wallet with out-of-the-box designs for coupons, loyalty cards, gift cards, event tickets, boarding passes, and membership cards, as well as a generic version for other mobile use cases.

Passes created for Apple Passbook can be automatically mapped over to corresponding cards for Google Wallet, and vice-versa. Once created, wallet items can be delivered to a brand’s entire mobile audience via app, website, email, SMS, and social media services such as Twitter and Facebook.

Boosting Customer Acquisition & Loyalty

In addition, Wallet Studio’s detailed analytics reports also allow businesses to measure programme performance and optimise the results of their digital wallet initiatives.

Since the launch of Apple Passbook last September, many major brands have claimed successes in boosting customer acquisition and loyalty, and many apps have seen their popularity skyrocket in the App Store with the introduction of Passbook support.

Coupons.com notes 70% of Passbook users who viewed passes added them to Passbook for in-store redemption. And while Alaska Airlines has offered mobile boarding passes through its app and mobile website for some time, several thousand boarding passes were added to Passbook within the first few days of Urban Airship-enabled support.